In the wake of school shootings, debate around LAUSD’s ‘wanding’ policy heightens

Share this:

Students gather during a vigil at Pine Trails Park for the victims of the Wednesday shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018. Nikolas Cruz, a former student, was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder on Thursday. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

Twenty-six years ago, as the superintendent of Inglewood Unified School District, George J. McKenna III penned an editorial arguing against increased armed police at schools, fences around campuses and metal detectors at school entrances.

McKenna had seen how far a dedicated and sensitive school staff — along with student-peer counseling, engaged parents and a caring atmosphere — could go at a gang-infested high school. But today McKenna, now a Los Angeles Unified School District board member, said the world has changed.

“(Students) have access to weaponry they didn’t have before — and America is a violent place,” said McKenna, whose tenure as principal at George Washington Preparatory High School in South Los Angeles was celebrated in the 1986 television movie “The George McKenna Story,” starring Denzel Washington. “We have to be able to protect our children, even from themselves.”

Days after a former student confessed to killing 17 people at a Florida high school, and a few weeks after an unintentional shooting at a Los Angeles middle school, the school security debate at LAUSD campuses is ramping up anew.

Some call for stepped-up security on campus. Others feel current measures, such as random wanding, need to be reconsidered. All are hunting for answers to help students, educators and parents feel more secure.

Some LAUSD board members and community members call for the district to examine alternatives to random “wanding” — with a portable metal detector — of students by staff members at middle and high schools in light of civil rights and some students’ concerns.

Random searches were recommended at LAUSD schools starting in 1993. In 2011, the district implemented a policy requiring all secondary schools to conduct random searches on a daily basis.

LAUSD board member Nick Melvoin noted that officials at Salvador Castro Middle School, where two students were injured Feb. 1 after a gun discharged in a backpack, had implemented the random wanding policy faithfully.

“Maybe this reactive focus on wanding is missing the point, and we need to be looking at again, state and federal policies around gun control, and then also mental-health counselors,” Melvoin said.

But other board members — and many parents — stand behind the district’s wanding policy, saying it is needed more than ever to prevent students from bringing weapons into the school.

“This activism that says we’re doing students a favor by not wanding them or criminalizing them by having officers on campus is a misguided notion of safety — and it’s a reaction to some (with an) anti-police mentality,” McKenna said. “Who will be responsible when we discontinue the process (of wanding)? And is there a better process?”

From July 1, 2014, to June 30, 2017, 70 handguns, 16 rifles/shotguns and 1,196 knives were confiscated at LAUSD schools, according to McKenna. Some were found via wanding.

A district survey found last year that 78 percent of LAUSD parents polled agreed that random searches should be conducted at their child’s school. Meanwhile, less than half of students surveyed felt that way.

Alex Caputo-Pearl, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, said the union favors alternatives to random wanding.

“We’re concerned about how effective they are in terms of promoting school safety and the interruption of instructional time,” he said.

A February, 2011 article in the Journal of School Health by Abigail Hankin, Marci Hertz, and Thomas Simon concluded that there is insufficient data to determine whether the presence of metal detectors in schools and random wanding reduce the risk of violent behavior among students.

UTLA also is interested in examining alternatives to random wanding that promote a much fuller and comprehensive school safety program, Caputo-Pearl said. That would include the addition of more trained professionals in mental health issues who could offer social and emotional support to students.

UTLA, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel and Black Lives Matter, is co-sponsoring an event at L.A. Trade Tech at 9:30 a.m. Feb 24, calling for an end to random searches and in support of funding for the community school model.

While some activists urge the removal of school police, that is not and has never been UTLA’s position, he said. And despite a media report to the contrary, he stressed that’s not what the Feb. 24 event is about.

The day before that event, on Feb. 23, the United Valley Caucus — a coalition of LAUSD educators that work in the San Fernando Valley — is holding a “Rally in the Valley to Support Safe Schools” at 3:30 p.m. in the quad area of Mulholland Middle School, said Bruce Newborn, United Teachers Los Angeles West Valley Area Chair. LAUSD board members Scott Schmerelson and Kelly Gonez are among those scheduled to attend, he said.

“In the Valley, we like our school police; we have a great relationship with them,” Newborn said. “I do know in other parts of the city, they have a different relationship with the school police. And we want to let our people know that we are in support of school police in the Valley.”

Meanwhile, LAUSD and Los Angeles School Police officials have been doing what they can to assure community members that student safety is their “No. 1 priority.”

The Los Angeles School Police Department has more than 400 sworn police officers, about 100 non-sworn school safety officers and dozens of civilian support staff dedicated to the district – the largest independent school police department in the country.

The department has a “robust deployment plan,” where they deploy officers to district high schools and various middle schools on a daily basis, LASPD Chief Steve Zipperman told reporters at a news conference Thursday. Numerous officers are also out on patrol for a rapid response to all elementary schools and other campuses.

In addition, each school has an integrated safe-school plan, whereby every administrator and staff member is aware of appropriate responses for any type of situation, including active shooter situations, he said.

The department also monitors social media on an ongoing basis and does threat and vulnerability assessments, Zipperman added.

But officials noted it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep a school’s students and staff safe.

On Wednesday, a social media post by a student at Taft High School in Woodland Hills appeared to be threatening, Melvoin said. Some teachers and students saw the post, were able to intervene. It was ultimately deemed not to be a threat by school police, he said.

“It was suspicious enough that we’re very thankful that people alerted us, not only so we can have an extra presence, but so we can intervene with the student and try to understand what’s going on in his life provoking this kind of posting, ” Melvoin said. “It’s a proactive approach.”

Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.